Picture of the week

Sandstone pastels

A pinyon pine set against a shear sandstone cliff face under the early morning light. I dry camped here about a month ago during a trip out to the San Rafael Swell of southern Utah during another canyoneering and fall color trip with a group of 3 other friends.  After getting up out of my tent in the morning, the soft morning light beckoned for some photography.  The question immediately was what to compose, as the light was changing by the minute, as the sun moved through a light layers of clouds out on the horizon.  I grabbed my tripod and scrambled for a composition to capture that would take advantage of this soft and pastel colored light.  After huffing and puffing up a hill to the base of this sandstone cliff, I spotted this tree, which looked ideal for an image that could take advantage of this light, showing the blue-pink sky, sandstone red cliffs acting as a giant reflector, with the deep greens from the pinyon pine.  Two minutes from the initial shooting, the more pastel colors captured here were gone, shifting to a more dull gray look as the sun moved behind the clouds. After that, time to get back into camp and make some breakfast, and ponder how certain lighting situations like this can sometimes be so fleeting for photography.

We had camped near an old copper mine.  Exploring the area on foot, I found an old miner's cabin a bit further away and out of site from the main diggings. This cabin was noteworthy in how intact the facilities were.  The door was closed, and when I opened it, I found some old shirts and jacket hanging on the wall, along with a few cans of food.  But based on the vintage of the cans and decomposition of the mattresses, it appeared the place had not been occupied for at least 10~20 years, but still remarkably intact in terms of furnishings. 

After breaking camp, the rest of that day was spent traveling out to the Little Horse Canyon area via our pair of 4wd vehicles and up to the trailhead of Crack Canyon, exploring this class II canyon via a 3-4 hour scramble, and then ending the day at the trailhead for the next day's hike at the top of Lower Baptist Draw and Chute Canyon.  In order to maximize our time out here, much of this trip was planned with a similar regimen, enabling us to cover a lot of ground, but making for some long days.  To support this type of travel and hiking, we had enough water, ice, and food to be self-sufficient for about 3-4 days at a time, resupplying at some of the small towns out in this area of BFE in places such as Hanksville and Escalante.

All content and images are property of Stephen Fischer Photography, copyright 2014.  Last updated: 11/16/2014   ()